The Managed Heart Arlie Hochschild Analysis

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Taylar Epperly “What is Work” 1213-020 Emotional Intelligence March 16, 2012 Women, Emotion, and its Attachment to Intelligence “When a man expresses anger, it is deemed “rational” or understandable anger, anger that indicates not weakness of character but deeply held conviction. When women express an equivalent degree of anger, it is more likely to be interpreted as a sign of personal instability. It is believed that women are more emotional, and this very belief is used to invalidate their feelings. That is, the women’s feelings are seen not as a response to real events but as reflections of themselves as “emotional” women.” Arlie Hochschild, 173 In the above quotation from the Managed Heart, Arlie Hochschild affirms one of the…show more content…
They describe the many jobs that are considered feminine such as secretarial, waitressing, and stewardess trades. Within these “feminine” jobs comes certain requirements for women such as, smiling, being friendly, and overly joyous. These type of behaviors are almost expected to be fulfilled without any questions since society has already pegged women as “emotion” laborers. This type of emotion is called “shadow labor” which can be described as the emotional work of enhancing the status and well-being of others (Hochschild 167). Women are expected to put on a motherly overtone while working; they are required to laugh at the jokes of the customers and are expected to go above and beyond their traditional expectations. However, if a man was working in these types of jobs he would not be required to display these types of emotions and nobody would think any differently of him. This is a double standard that many women are subjected to in the workplace. The importance of shadow labor becomes apparent when considering how society reacts to it. There are many feminine jobs that are considered detached from any type of emotional investment, but despite this common misconception, “it’s the emotional labor, the stress of feeling obligated to smile through humiliating comments that marks this work…show more content…
Women have long been considered to be part of the lower status when it comes to jobs similar to men. In Arlie Hochschild’s vies, “The feelings of the lower-status partly may be discounted in two ways: by considering them rational but unimportant or by considering them irrational and hence dismissible” (172). This “doctrine of feelings” has been seen to permeate the workforce in such a way that it becomes impossible for women to be respected when they display any sort of emotion. In this essence, women who are considered the lower class in the working environment are oppressed in two ways. The first such way is to ignore any legitimate concerns women have; the second way is to classify any emotion as unnecessary and “irrational.” Women get taken advantage of solely because society has considered them emotional, which in today’s modern society is often mistaken for being unstable. This in turn affects a women’s status in life. With this in mind, it is the status that will ultimately define their social mobility, “the lower the status, the more manner of seeing and feeling is subjected to being discredited, and the less believable it becomes” (Hochschile 173). Society has usually seen the lower class as unintelligent and therefore have their opinions denigrated. Even if she has a legitimate case to voice an opinion, “a person of lower status has a weaker claim to the right to define what is going on; less
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